It is well known to use hemostatic or ligating clips in the course of surgical operations. Various forms and shapes of such clips are also well known. Generally the clips have a bight portion and an open end so the clip can be applied over the blood vessel or tissue and then clamped thereon. The clips are constructed with latching means or of material which will cause the clip to remain in its clamped condition after release of the instrument by which they were clamped. The invention is illustrated and described as applied to a V-shaped clip but it is obvious that any person skilled in the art could make minor modifications to the jaws as shown to adapt the instrument to substantially any size or configuration of clip now known or to be devised.
Clip appliers of the prior art often have magazines for storing extra clips which makes them bulky and difficult to use in restricted places such as are encountered in neurosurgery, have the distal clip applying end in line with the magazine and the other operating portions of the instrument which makes it difficult to observe visually the position and application of the clip, are operated by scissor like handles which require the insertion of the thumb and fingers making it more difficult to grasp and hold the instrument and have complicated pivot and lever motions which require a multiplicity of parts and increase the possibility that small parts may break or come loose and fall into the body of the person being operated on.
The instrument of this invention avoids the disadvantages described above and provides many other advantages which will hereinafter be explained.